Let's play 20 questions in Brunswick Park ward today

Today the residents of Brunswick Park have to choose a new councillor. They might find Shaheen Mahmood on their doorstep (if you see a black Mercedes estate rolling up, it could be her). The prospective councillor will want to tell you how fantastic her team have been and what she is going to do for the ward (not much according to leaflets and letters seen by Mr Mustard). She needs to be tested a little. Here are some questions you could ask.

Please can you explain the One Barnet programme to me.

Do you think public parks should be hired out for private events?

Do you think parking meters should be available so that people can pay with cash or a credit card on the spot (especially the old who may not have a mobile phone)?

What do you think of the MetPro scandal?

What do you think of RM Countryside not having had a contract?

What do you think of Barnet Council being fined £70,000 in May 12 for losing data about vulnerable children?

Do you think Brunswick Park library should remain closed or be opened again? 

Which bus do I have to take to get to Tally Ho?

Why did it take 2 years and 4 months to start rebuilding work on the Brunswick Park Health centre ?

Do you think there are too many highly paid officers?

Is Nick Walkley worth £200,000 a year?

Do you think any Pelican crossings in the borough should be removed?

What would you try to change about the way the council is run?

Do you think you should perhaps walk around the ward rather than drive?

Should Lisa Rutter step down as she doesn't live in the ward?

If you want Brunswick Park ward car parks to be free why not all of them across the borough?

Please send any other questions, and answers you receive, to mrmustard@zoho.com or put them in the comments box.

If the answers are not satisfactory then you will want to vote for Andreas Ioannides, the Labour Party candidate. By all means ask him about what he would like to change but until Labour win more seats they can't achieve much.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Boris - your letter is pathetic

Now I know you won't have written the letter Boris but you have enough well paid advisers to do better than this effort. Mr Mustard will be charitable and suggest you have never seen the letter and your digital signature goes on it. You need to keep a better eye on your underlings.

sorry the copy is so poor, so is the content!

Mr Mustard will save your tired eyes. Here is what Boris wrote (it has your name on Boris so you will have to take the flak).

Dear .....

I'm writing to ask you to give Shaheen Mahmood your support tomorrow in the Brunswick Park Ward By-Election. Simples.

This election is not about what the Government is doing or whether or not the Council is popular. Some people will always think about what the government does when they decide which candidate to vote for. If you don't want that then you should campaign to get the party name taken off ballot papers. The by-election will most definitely be decided on whether the council are popular or not. It is telling that you put this remark in as you know that they are not popular; you lost Brian Coleman from Barnet remember. If what the majority conservative administration is doing locally in Barnet is not popular then the message has to be sent by rejecting this candidate that policies need to change.

It's about who is going to represent Brunswick Park Ward most effectively over the next 2 years. If Shaheen Mahmood is elected she will be the new girl and will be whipped into shape and a pound to a penny she will stick her hand in the air and vote every One Barnet stupid decision through with the rest of the flock.

I strongly believe that the only person for the job is Shaheen. Natch.

This is not just because Shaheen is a Conservative; it's because she is the only candidate who lives in the ward. Shaheen is a conservative, I am a conservative. This is about the only sensible line in the whole letter. Boris has been mugged into repeating the she lives in the ward so she is the only person for the job. OK, a hypothesis. Suppose the Brunswick Park village idiot (probably horribly un-PC but never mind, have a go in the comments box) were to join the conservative party, stuff envelopes, deliver leaflets etc etc and somehow get the nomination, would they be the only person for the job. Only in the sense that they are the only conservative candidate. They would still be the village idiot. This nonsense about local is automatically best has got to stop.

This means that she is the only candidate who is in the ward day-in day-out and is therefore in the best position to understand and work towards solving the problems faced by her fellow residents. Doubtless Shaheen goes off to do her work for the Muslim Conservative Forum elsewhere. The phone number for her 0207 984 8248 appears to be located at the conservative party HQ in Millbank, London SW1. One would expect Shaheen to spend a lot of time there. Other candidates could live outside of the ward and still visit it for longer than Shaheen. Just because you live elsewhere doesn't mean you can't understand the problems; maybe you are telling us Boris that when you came to the Peel Centre you didn't understand about Barnet's parking problems because you don't live here? no, I thought not.

Shaheen is also a key member of your local Conservative team who have a proven track record of working for the local community. "Is she?" thought Mr Mustard who hadn't heard of her before. What did he do. Well he googled her of course. He put "Shaheen Mahmood Brunswick Park" into google, then he chose UK only and then he chose dates before 31/12/2011 in order to refine the search and find all of Shaheen early marvels in the ward. What did he get? He got 11 results none of which related to anything Shaheen has been doing locally. Note that the team have a proven track record. You aren't being asked to vote for the team but for the person. Call Mr Mustard picky but you can "work for" a result and not achieve it. Very weak endorsement that from Boris.

The team has been instrumental in delivering results for residents on local issues. For example, as you read this letter, work is underway on rebuilding Brunswick Park Ward's Health Centre. It is true that work has just started, see this article in the reliable local paper. So, the health centre burnt down in January 2010 and it is only just being rebuilt now. Hardly a "result". Besides, the council can't have got involved between the insurer and the NHS as they had to standing in the claim. This late rebuilding is nothing to be proud of.

It has also supported the ward's Safer Neighbourhood Team in their drive to crack down on anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping, as well as fighting to keep parking free at the ward's two car parks in Osidge Lane and Brunswick Park Road. Mrs Angry will probably explain about the loss of a number of sergeants from the SNTs in due course. Mr Mustard put a FOI question in about fly-tipping. The answer seems to be outstanding from January. What Mr Mustard does know from elsewhere was that at that stage there had been no prosecutions for fly-tipping since October 2010. Not much of a crack down! Parking, oh Boris you are a wag. The conservative administration put through new parking charges without any objection from their own councillors and then suddenly all hell breaks loose with the public and councillors in nearby East Barnet are suddenly against them. There was a leaflet about parking that had to be withdrawn. Did no-one tell you?

And for the first time in Barnet Council's history, council tax has been frozen for a record fourth year running, while at the same time safeguarding key local services such as weekly bin collections. Barnet Council does not have all that long a history. Freezing council tax is a mistake and only possible because of funding from central government. When the tax does rise it will rocket. Keeping the weekly main bin collection is a mistake. Recycling rates are poor in Barnet. The plan for the future is to have a green waste collection every 2 weeks. Plants grow when the temperature is above 5° so weekly collections are needed in summer and none in winter. The dry goods recycling will be every two weeks and that is the one that needs to be full so ought to be emptied more often to maximise opportunity. There will also be a food waste bin. The streets will be awash with bins. The people who rely on social services wouldn't agree that key local services have been safeguarded. They now have to pay more for less.

So when you go to the polling station tomorrow, I would urge you to vote for Shaheen Mahmood, who I know is just the kind of person Brunswick Park Ward residents need to represent them over the next two years. What positive reasons has Boris managed to give you that stand up to Mr Mustard's scrutiny? Not one. Don't vote for Shaheen, vote for change, vote for:

Andreas Ioannides, the Labour Party candidate.

Yours sincerely

Boris Johnson

Mayor of London

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

By-election special - Brunswick Park - Thursday 31 May

Well here we go, fresh from ousting Brian Coleman AM from the London Assembly there is another chance for voters to send a message to our local government that we don't like the way that the borough is run at present. The honour falls to the voters of Brunswick Park ward. 

The candidates are:-

Yahaya Dumba Kiingi (Liberal Democrats)

Shaheen Kauser Mahmood (Conservative Party Candidate)

Andreas Ioannidis (The Labour Party Candidate)

Lots has been written already by other bloggers on this subject and you can catch up with their views on the following pages, and others

Barnet Bugle

The Barnet Eye

Citizen Barnet

Mrs Angry of Broken Barnet

Mr Reasonable

Who would Mr Mustard vote for if he lived in Brunswick Park ward? Not the Liberal Democrat candidate as he can't truly expect to win. It's a great shame as the 3 lib dems we have in Childs Hill ward have done sterling service for years and it would be better for them to have a greater say in things.

Not the conservative candidate either. Why not? Well firstly because she has as the headline on her letter to voters of 25 May 12 that she is the only candidate who lives in the ward. If this is such a great thing why is it that Lisa Rutter doesn't live in the ward; does that make her a lesser councillor? Mr Mustard isn't Lisa's biggest fan although she seemed quite good at planting trees, talking to people and cutting ribbons etc. as mayor, but to say in effect that, if elected, one of your existing fellow councillors is less worthy as a councillor is completely wrong.

She also claims not to be a politician. This is so ridiculous. Why are you standing for a political office if you are not a politician? It doesn't sit very easily either with your position as the contact person for the Conservative Muslim Forum which, presumably, has some interest in politics?

Why do you float round the ward in a large black Mercedes estate car when the ward is not very big and you really should be a bit greener and walk like everyone else including Mr Mustard who was delivering BAPS leaflets which tell residents about the One Barnet mass privatisation programme. By walking you would meet more local people and have had the chance to tell them why they should vote for you. ( BAPS = Barnet Alliance for Public Services )

Now what will you get if you vote for Shaheen Mahmood? Mr Mustard has to surmise from what isn't being said. You will get someone who, coming so late to the game, will be unable to do anything to stop the One Barnet mass privatisation even if she wanted to. She would need to read 3 years of council reports, which does not seem very likely, just to get up to speed. You can just see her hand going up with the flock of lambs at meetings of the whole council.

She isn't going to rock the boat and ask for the nearby Friern Barnet library to be re-opened. People on that edge of Brunswick Park ward used the FB library as could any resident of the borough.

If any governor of St Paul's Church of England School in N11 can quietly tip mrmustard@zoho.com the wink about why Shaheen self-disqualified herself from being a governor in about January 2012, or just before, he would be much obliged.

You won't get free bays back in CPZs.

You will get more remote services provided by BT or Capita or some such conglomerate from whichever country they find cheapest to locate the services.

Parking has already been outsourced by the conservative administration. This candidate won't be able to stop that as it is a fait accompli.

You won't see parking meters put back in every location.

You will still see private parks rented out for private parties (how you can put that councillors have listened to residents in your letter of 25 May 2012 to voters is brass neck indeed. The current administration may have listened but it ignored the 99% who said they didn't want private events in public parks).

You will still see allotment rents being steeply increased.

You will see the continued progress of the One Barnet mass privatisation programme for which Mr Mustard has never seen an intelligent report with a properly detailed cost benefit analysis.

You won't see the existing in-house teams being given the chance to bid to run their services.

You will carry on seeing masses of town hall tax dodging consultants on up to £1,000 a day with their noses in the trough which your council tax is wasted filling.

You will get the massive Brent Cross expansion programme. 

Will Barnet FC fans vote for you? not after the way the club has been treated.

The policies which this current conservative administration have embarked upon, and which most of the non-cabinet councillors almost certainly know very little of the detail, are wrecking the borough. 

The only way to make them listen and change it seems is to take every chance to vote them out of office and Labour in.

So please on Thursday vote for:

Andreas Ioannidis 

(The Labour Party Candidate)

If Mr Mustard could vote in this by-election, he would do so tactically ( he is not a member of the Labour party ) and would vote Labour in order to send the message to the conservative councillors

We do not like what you are doing to our borough and we are going to stop you before you ruin it.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard